


Wise Words

by QueenOfTheWesternSky



Category: Infernal Devices - Cassandra Clare, Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M, Spoilers for COLS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 02:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheWesternSky/pseuds/QueenOfTheWesternSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After leaving Brooklyn in something of a hurry, Magnus finds himself having tea with an old friend who is willing to offer him some wise words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wise Words

Being so lost in his own thoughts, it had hardly even occurred to Magnus that certain recent events might have an effect on the outside world, that people out there knew what had happened between himself and Alec only…well, he wasn’t entirely sure when it had happened. For the first time in a long time, time was slipping away from him. He’d always had such a good grasp on it, especially for someone of his age but now it seems like such a _human_ concept.

And that was the problem, just how human a world he lived in, how many constant reminders of what he wasn’t surrounded him. He took to using his magic more often, like he was trying to solidify the idea, within his own mind, that he was not and never would be a human being. For the most part, he was more than okay with that. There were far too many joys he got from being what he was, to wish to be anything else. That was after all what had caused the recent calamity, wasn’t it? His desire to remain as he was, eternal and ageless.

The eternal had no need to keep track of time. He had only done so because it helped him savour the moments with his un-eternal lovers. Because if he kept track of time, he could know that on Tuesday, five weeks passed, he’d found his lover curled up on the couch in his pyjama’s waiting for him to return home. Or that three weeks ago, on a lazy Friday afternoon his lover, his beautiful stunningly naïve lover, had chosen to stay at their loft with him instead of going out somewhere with his moron of a parabatai. There were dozens of moments like that, moments that were slowly slipping away from him, more and more with each passing day. 

As cliché as it sounded, even to him, Magnus was sure that heartbreak had never hurt this much before, and if he was right, never would again. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that he’d never take another lover, he had far too much time left on the Earth to spend every waking moment of it alone. He enjoyed the intimate company of others far too much to simply seclude himself forever over the loss of one mere mortal.

Though that mortal was not yet mere, and it was not yet forever, so Magnus did exactly that. He relocated himself as far from Brooklyn as he could get, and decided that for a while, he didn’t want anything to do with the outside world. There were so few that could understand what it meant to be eternal and to love that which was not, even fewer that he wanted anything to do with. So he supposed he was rather lucky that she came to him, with an age not so grand as his own, but grand enough to know the pain that was consuming him.

Italy was a beautiful place, Magnus had always thought so. Briefly, a few months ago he’d been there on what he now thought of as a honeymoon of sorts, he wanted to show his lover how beautiful the world could be, in comparison to the dark and dismal world that all Shadowhunters seemed to live in. 

He had drunk no less than six glasses of straight whiskey, and spent the last hour staring out the window, into the night sky like it might tell him something so profound, so wonderful, that he might find some comfort in it. But as anyone who had turned to the sky for help would know, rarely does it answer. The tap on the door of his little apartment set up was more confusing than shocking. Who on Earth would even want to find him now? Much less know where to begin looking.

Upon opening the door, he really didn’t know who else it could have been. Who else kept tabs on him closely enough to know that he’d run away to Rome in the middle of the night? Especially when he’d been so careful to avoid a paper trail. “Sometimes, my dear, I feel that you keep too close an eye on me.”

The girl—woman, he supposed—just smiled at him like she had a secret, which she probably did. No one lived as long as they without a couple. “With a personality like yours, I think that if I were any less thorough, you’d be lost to the world forever.” Sometimes it was so obvious to him that she’d never quite stepped out of her original time, she hadn’t let it go completely, and he doubted she ever would. She still pinned her hair up in the same way as she had then, dressed almost as modestly, though not quite as formally, as she had when he’d first met her. He’d tied coaxing her into the modern world, but alas, at heart, Tessa Grey was, and always would be, a Victorian lady.

“Alas, I suppose I can’t argue with that.” Magnus stepped to the side and opened the door widely. “Please, do come in. I can’t say it’s much, but for now it’s all I have.” Tessa smiled that same smile and gave a curtsy. One day he was going to teach her how to properly function in the modern world. But not today, or tomorrow, or any other day soon.

“I’m going to assume you know why I’m here.” She said, still speaking softly like she always had (Though, as he recalled, she could get quite loud and quite angry when speaking to a certain Herondale that they both to this day held fondly in their hearts). 

“I haven’t the faintest idea.” He replied, moving swiftly through the room and towards the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Yes please. You know how I like it.” She followed him, the heels of her boots making a small clicking noise as she walked across the polished floorboards. “Magnus, for someone as old and crafty as you, it’s almost sad that you still can’t tell me a lie.”

He scoffed, filling up the kettle and pulling out two very delicate tea cups, as opposed to mugs. Tessa’s visits were few and secretly very precious to him. They deserved something nice. “That’s not true, Tessa my dear, I’ve told many lies that you’ve believed.”

“Back when I was little more than a child. But how long has it been since I believed a single lie that fell from those pretty lips of yours? Hm?” She perched herself atop a stool on front of the bench, facing him as he pottered about in the small kitchen.

“Eighty seven years, if I remember correctly.” Which he did. Magnus always remembered correctly, every time he said otherwise, now that was a lie. “I told you the Great Gatsby wasn’t going to last the test of time. And yet here we are.” He set a cup and matching saucer in front of her and offered a weak shamble of a smile.

“Well that doesn’t really matter, now does it?” Tessa went on, stopping briefly to sip at her tea. “Because I haven’t tracked you all the way from Brooklyn to Rome to talk about your ability to lie convincingly. I came because I knew you were going to need someone, even though I know right now that you’re thinking of insisting you don’t the second I stop speaking.”

Magnus let out a faint sigh and sipped at his tea. “I know exactly why you’re here, Tessa. And I’m telling you now that I’m perfectly fine. I just needed a change of scenery after…”

“I’ve spoken to him you know.” She set down her cup and saucer, folding her hands in her lap while Magnus’s breath hitched. “I thought his parabatai was going to toss me out of the Institute when I said I was a friend of yours.”

“And?” For someone who was as old as he, as wise as he and as experienced as he, Magnus could scarcely believe it when he found his voice shaking. “What did he say?”

“He didn’t say much at all really. He was very quiet.” She continued with a sad sigh. “He looked so broken, it made me think back centuries to when I was just like him. Do you remember? Back when Jem died? You used to always tell me that people like us couldn’t afford to grieve so deeply, for the grief would become part of us, do you recall that? You told me that if I wasn’t careful, I’d carry the black heart of a widow for the rest of my never-ending days.”

Magnus shut his eyes tightly, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to get his runaway emotions under control. “I don’t see the need to bring up the past, Tessa. What does any of this have to do with anything?”

“You know I’m not the sort to waste words. I’m getting there, for someone like yourself, you are awfully impatient.” Tessa gave the slightest of sighs before continuing. “You see, Magnus, you were right. I shouldn’t have grieved so deeply then, because now my heart is black. That’s what happens when you really love someone, someone’s in my case, they leave scars. These scars can be great or small, but they are scars none the less. Deep and brutal, marks on your heart that will never heal. I fear that now you’re doomed to be like me, carrying a heart full of sadness and regret. Of wants never met. Because I know you, Magnus, I know how deeply you can love someone. And I know that boy meant more to you than you’ll ever say.”

“Tessa…” His voice had taken on a warning tone, almost threatening. Not that it would do any good. They both knew he’d never hurt her, not her. Never her.

“No, you need to hear this, it’s for your own good.” She snapped back at him. Feisty, she’d always been feisty. “I’m not telling you to go back to him, because that’s your call. It isn’t my place to tell you what to do and who to love. But you need to make peace, Magnus. With yourself, with him, with the world. Because otherwise, that spark inside you, the one that’s kept you going for so long, will disappear. And I never hope to live long enough to see that happen.”

There was a lengthy silence between the two, and for a moment, Tessa almost thought she’d gone too far. But then, Magnus chuckled. “Miss Tessa Grey, you still have that charming way with words, don’t you? For a soul so aged, you’re still so much that girl I met all those years ago.” He set down his cup and reached out to touch her hand. “Still so wise for your years. Thank you.”

Tessa didn’t know what exactly it was that she’d said to garner such a response, all she did know was that she was glad something, anything, she had said had gotten into that often thick skull of his. So with little idea what else to do, she smiled at him. “I’m always here if you need me, Magnus. Always.” 

“How is it, even with centuries on you, you still act the senior?” He mused, a faint smile playing upon his lips. It was true, she always spoke as though _she_ was guiding _him_. Like she knew so much better. Though with how he acted sometimes, it wasn’t hard to do so.

“Perhaps in my _few_ years, I have learned what it takes many centuries to grasp.” Again, he chuckled and withdrew his hand, his tea sitting off to the side, long forgotten.

“You always were so wise, Miss Grey, perhaps even too wise.”

“My dear Magnus, one can never be too wise.”

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as something completely different and I don't know how it ended up being what it is.


End file.
